Not so far from home
by ThornDraconis
Summary: Before Mysterio, there was Quentin Beck. Or was there? This is a story of how Mysterio came to be.


"_The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery." ― Anais Nin_

X

The sunlight kept peering between the trees so that light and shadow alternated in bathing his car. The grip in the steering wheel was so tight that his knuckles had turned white, but he honestly did not care about the pressure. His eyes were glued to the highway as he left his Alma Mater, but his mind was reliving the moments of embarrassment and frustration he had just endured.

It was supposed to be sort of a welcome party. He had graduated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ten years ago – at eighteen, top of his class. He was, of course, a bit of a prodigy, maybe not like that kid who had graduated at fifteen, but a prodigy nonetheless. Job offers had popped the moment he stepped foot outside the university, but he had already planned his ultimate goal: working at Stark Industries. He felt slightly hurt that this was the only job offer he had not received, but then again Tony Stark was not a predictable fellow. So, he had travelled to New York City, ambushed the man as he left dinner one night and handed him a prototype he had been working on for the past year. It was quite simple, actually – a device that allowed its user to perfectly mimic one's voice. It was also quite dangerous, but Tony Stark had not discovered his humanity back then. He had earned a job at Research and Development and moved from Boston to New York City the next week.

Being the youngest scientist there was the biggest achievement yet in his life. His parents had been so happy when his son had broken the news. Both of them were doctors and had initially wanted him to follow their footsteps, but they had no doubt now that Quentin Beck had been born to do great deeds. He came back to Boston to visit his parents every two weeks and always told them how he worked late hours every day to ensure he was always one step ahead of everyone else. He told hem of one colleague's jealously, of a compliment Stark himself had paid to another one of his prototypes and of one time he had slept at the office when he was about to discover a breakthrough that had made the head of R&D claim in a paternal and proud tone that he would one day lose his job to him.

His parents had also been there the first time Quentin had faced disappointment at his idol-boss. And the second. And the third. Tony drank a lot. Tony went to expos to flirt with women instead of promoting his team. Tony was a megalomaniac. Tony did not recognize the hard work the entire R&D department did on his behalf. Tony was a genius, but so was everyone else that worked for him.

But then Iron Man had happened. The disappointments had been put aside and back was the excited kid who craved nothing more than his idol's attention. Now Tony was the savior of mankind. He was a hero. A _super_ hero. A super hero who had incorporated one of Quentin's tech prototypes to his suit and thanked the kid for ambushing him at dinner years ago. He had driven back home that weekend with a smile so big that it had broken his mom's heart even more to deliver him the news.

She was dying. She had no more than three months left. Quentin had stared at her so helplessly for one hour straight as he did his best to take in his mom's face, how their eyes had the same shade of blue and how her nose tipped to the left ever so slightly. He had taken a leave of absence from work and stood faithfully with her until her dying breath. It did not take much longer for his father to follow suit and in less than six months, he was all alone. Her mother had lost to cancer and his father to a broken heart.

Quentin was 24 at that time and he did the only thing he could possibly do: he decided to dive head first in work and focus all his attention on becoming the greatest scientist in Stark Industries. But after the Battle for New York, everything had changed and the disappointments he had faced early in his career came back with full force but with one extra element: Tony was now acting as though he had been sent by God himself to set everyone free. He had handled the aftermath of the Battle for New York by striking a deal with the US government and having the newly created Department of Damage Control gather all alien tech and seize it from a salvage company that had already been contracted to clean up the city. Quentin was not much of a bleeding heart, but that was plain douchebag. Then, he had forbidden his team to have access to said alien tech instead of doing the obvious and learning from it, improving existing tech, transferring it to other purposes rather than warfare. The icing on the cake had been that Quentin's boss had been fired for arguing just that with Tony.

The newly appointed head of R&D did not fall for Quentin's charm and instead considered him too eager, too excited, too eccentric, too _unstable_ for the job. He could not argue with him, of course, but he also did his best to pretend Quentin was not there and that the best ideas from that department did not come from its youngest employee. He suspected that Tony still liked him, but given his closeness to the prior head of R&D had decided to keep him on the line. Tony no longer headed the company; he had named Pepper Potts and she too was immune to Quentin's charm. That did not diminish his ideas, but rather stirred a fire inside his heart that had never been there before. He had to prove himself more than ever, he had to show to his boss that he was needed not only by Stark Industries but Iron Man himself. He had to show that science and technology, not super heroes or gods, were able to protect the world.

Quentin kept the ideas and the prototypes coming. He was head and shoulders above everyone else there and his colleagues just knew that everything Beck touched turned into gold. However, his arrogance and power-thirst, which had always been under the surface, started growing more and more and one argument with his boss led him to a chat with Human Resources. He had to relax, chill, _slow down_ in the words of one manager. They _understood_ that the loss of his parents had affected him tremendously and that he had made work his priority, but he needed to relax. They _got _him, but he was too young. They _understood _him because he was under a lot of pressure. And in the end, even though his contributions were really appreciated, he was an employee _just like everyone else_.

_Just like everyone else._

He would _never_ be like everyone else.

He had done his best not to destroy his apartment when he had gotten back home. What did they mean he was like everyone else? He had graduated at 18 from MIT! He had created four different prototypes that Iron Man himself had incorporated to his suit! What did they mean he had to relax? What the fuck did it mean to slow down? Couldn't they see he had a clear goal, a clear vision? Couldn't they see the great things he had accomplished? Couldn't they see that he, not his old ragged boss, was fit to the position of head of R&D? Couldn't they see that his colleagues worked their best because they were always following his footsteps? Couldn't they see that he was a prodigy?

_Like everyone else my balls_, he had thought as he stared fixedly into the mirror, gripping it tight.

Apparently, they couldn't see anything. He had passed by Tony the next day and did not receive even a good morning. His boss, however, had been greeted warmly by fucking Iron Man and told _he_ was the future of Stark Industries. And to make it even worse, Quentin had to talk to HR every week for three months straight so they could check on his progress. A charmer, he knew exactly what they wanted to hear, so he told them just that. _I know you are concerned. I know you care about me. I know I need to slow down. I know. I know. I know_. The only thing he refrained from mentioning was how much he missed his parents and how unhappy he was. He kept that to himself every time he stepped into HR. On the inside, however, he was a changed man. He kept working and working, doing late hours every day back home and even dedicating his weekends to prove that they were all wrong. Tony Stark was wrong about him. They were all wrong about him. And he would show them just that.

Which was why coming with Tony Stark to the MIT earlier that day, two years after being completely ignored by the man, was the perfect opportunity to prove himself once and for all. He had spent those past two years developing this piece of technology which basically created a highly-advanced holographic illusion system. The work of a lifetime. The work of his life. That was the future right there and the applications were simply endless.

Quentin had come to Boston the day before, made a stop at the graveyard to visit his parents' tombstones and told them how much he wished they could see what he was about to do. He then had gone back to their home and spent the night going through his notes to answer all the questions he was sure the MIT students would have. He had selected a suit that complimented his eye color. He had trimmed his beard and spent almost half an hour fixing his hair. He had bought a new pair of shoes and shined them himself. And it was all perfect. Tony Stark would be there for a brief introduction, then Pepper Potts would make a speech about how much Stark Industries believed in science and research and funded their scientists, and then it would be Quentin Beck himself explaining how he had come up with that concept.

That was it, simple as that.

Tony Stark had completely destroyed everything, blindsided his employee. _Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing or B.A.R.F._, that's what Tony had named Quentin's invention, without giving the man as much of any credit. The audience's thunderous laughter was still echoing inside his brain as he drove back to his parents' home. Instead of highlighting all the wonders that his prototype could allow, Tony had decided to use it to clear his traumatic memories, to take a stroll back memory lane and show the audience how he would have dealt with his last goodbye to his parents if he were given a chance.

When Quentin had stepped foot into the stage, he no longer had everyone's attention. The kids, who had just been made recipients of the inaugural September Foundation, did not want to know about his work, but rather how much he enjoyed working with Mr. Stark, how many projects of him had already been funded and how it was like to be with Iron Man himself. They wanted to know whether he was flattered by the acronym Tony had assigned to the invention. They wanted to know if Tony really was a genius. They wanted to know everything – everything but himself.

Quentin had almost broken his hand punching the steering wheel before leaving his Alma Mater and heading back to his parents' home. And now as he drove and kept his eyes glued to the road in order to avoid causing anything worse, he knew deep down that Tony Stark had never cared about him. He was a drunk. He was a megalomaniac. He was a fraud. He took advantage of others. He was a mess. He was a lie. He considered himself a god. He did not even have super powers. The only thing he had was a suit, a suit built in with technology other people had helped him develop. As he drove and fought back the angry tears that were threatening to cloud his vision, he could not help but think of everyone else that Tony had dismissed so carelessly throughout the years, everyone else he had considered below him after taking advantage of their talents and brains.

He parked his car and turned the engine off, then lowered his head against the steering wheel and closed his eyes, trying to ignore once again the bout of laughter he had witnessed earlier that day. It had been so long since the last time he had been made laughing stock, but the feeling was just as awful. It wrecked his insides, twisted his heart until all he could feel was anger and rage. He punched the steering wheel once again and then grabbed it with both hands and screamed at the top of his lungs. He was so fucking frustrated that it pained him even more to know that the only thing he could talk to were the tombstones of his dead parents. There were no friends, no family, absolutely _no one_ he could vent his resentment and try to figure out what to do next.

His right hand was throbbing painfully now and Quentin swallowed back another surge of rage before exiting the car and slamming the door shut. He could not care less about the neighbors at that point. They knew him, they had known him since he was a child and it was easy to smile charmingly and tell them that he had had a bad day at work and just wanted to rest now. On the inside, however, he was trying to control himself as much as he could not to tear that house apart until he expelled every ounce of rage he was feeling. It would not be fair to his parents' memories, they would probably be extremely concerned right now if they saw their son and how much darkness was starting to spread inside his chest.

He threw the car keys carelessly above the kitchen stool and opened the fridge without even knowing why. His mom always laughed at him when he was a kid for doing that because he had developed a habit of keeping the fridge door open until he was able to figure out an answer to a puzzle – whether it was a crosswords puzzle or a difficult mathematic equation. The thought of his mother, her smiley face and blue eyes, caused a pang to the tip of his stomach and the angry tears he had been trying to suppress earlier suddenly became too overwhelming for him to push back. They were streaming down his face before he even had time to understand what was going on.

He grabbed a bag of ice and closed the door, throwing the ice inside a bucket and pushing his right hand inside. The cold feeling cut through his skin painfully, but just as he cried, it felt as though it was cleansing some poison from his system and purging those atrocious feelings he was choking on. Suddenly, there was no more laughter or the arrogant face of Tony Stark, but rather the knowing look of his father when he arrived home from school after a harsh day of bullying or his mother's warm smile as she lulled him back to sleep after the nightmares that always came to threaten his peace when kids bullied him at school.

Quentin missed them so much and he had not realized the extent of it until that very day. He was completely alone and there would be no hugs from his mother to calm him down or encouragement words from his father to tell he was better than those brainless, spineless leeches. Instead, he was left with an empty house in which there was a photograph of the people he loved the most in almost every corner. The tears eventually subsided, and he realized the ice had also completely melted. He heard his stomach complain, but he honestly could not summon the will to eat anything right now. Anger and frustration had been replaced by grief and sadness and the only thing we wanted to do right now was completely impossible because no one else was there.

Raking his fingers through his messy brown hair, he threw his new shoes off carelessly and laid down on the couch, removing his coat and throwing on the floor as well. He stared at the ceiling for five minutes straight before sleep hijacked him and all he could see was darkness.

And then hours later, in the middle of the dark, a flash of green light.

X

**A/N:** watching FFH, I wondered how exactly Quentin Beck got the idea to create Mysterio. I know it is implied he had help, but I decided to create my own explanation as to how that help came to be.


End file.
